Archery Season 2022 Report
/This has been the club's most successful archery season in many years
We now have at least 22 experienced archers shooting regularly--13 men and 9 women--using our traditional six-lane Jerry Rendich Archery Range at Rodes Farm in Stoney Creek regularly. Led by John Morgan, our certified level 2 archery instructor, this year we coached over 30 adults and children, many of whom regularly participate in our practice sessions at Rodes Farm. Most have purchased their own archery equipment. John's outstanding work was recognized at the fall 2022 annual meeting.
We met for practice sessions 34 times on Tuesday mornings at the WSC range at Rodes Farm (only 3 rainouts!). Our cumulative total of archers, supporters, and newcomers at those sessions was 323. Since August, we have averaged over 10 participants at each session, with a high of 19. With increased numbers, we began shooting in successive waves to expedite our turnaround times.
On nine Sunday afternoons, we met at our rocky field archery trail with eight stations on the six WPOA-provided wooded acres at the end of Old Stoney Creek Road (only 1 rainout). This is a totally different experience from Rodes Farm and ideal for the adventurous archer—our highest participation level was six.
Our outreach efforts included our first-ever open house at Rodes Farm in April for all WPOA and Wintergreen Sporting Club (WSC) members with 25 participants, including Resort Manager Jay Gamble and his wife, Michelle. We also provided several volunteers to represent the archery group at the WSC table for the resort-sponsored Memorial Day Event.
The voluntary WSC Archery Achievement Awards Program at Rodes Farm instituted by John Morgan has been highly successful. Scoring ourselves is improving our abilities; lots of gold stars have been awarded. To date, our only seven-star recipient is Mark Gomersall, who scored 155 in the barebow category.
We ended the season on November 1st with a tournament and potluck lunch at Rodes Farm. Eleven archers participated, and 30 folks enjoyed the lunch.
We use recurve and compound bows. Crossbow and broadhead (hunting) arrows are not appropriate for our ranges since the targets will not stop them. You don’t need equipment to participate—we have loaner archery equipment you can use during our practice sessions. Email your questions to archery@wtgsportingclub.org. - Mike Capps, WSC Archery Lead
With generous WPOA assistance and WSC funding, we replaced the six aging target bags at Rodes Farm with substantially higher-quality new target frames and bright target faces. Although now faded from the sun and the high volume of archers, the faces will remain up over the winter before replacement next Spring. WPOA also gave us two new large wooden picnic tables with lots of space for archery gear and spectators and provided funding and copying of another 200 cards for our archery achievement program.
With donated lumber, netting (which was improvised, not from an archery provider), and volunteer assistance, WPOA's Dennis Inskeep extended the height of our backstop at Rodes Farm, preventing many arrows from going astray.
